


Told in Fallen Skies

by dr_zook



Category: Krabat, Krabat | The Satanic Mill - Otfried Preußler
Genre: Angst, Canonical Character Death, Dark, M/M, Necromancy, The Satanic Mill, Unrequited Love, You Can't Always Get What You Want, the Goodman, the Sultan's eagle
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-12-25
Updated: 2011-12-25
Packaged: 2017-10-28 03:21:20
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 923
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/303172
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/dr_zook/pseuds/dr_zook
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>It's the last New Year's Eve for the Master, and he recalls the split-up with his friend Jirko decades ago. </p><p>Also, this piece offers an explanation for the Master's obedience to the Goodman, and why he has only one eye.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Told in Fallen Skies

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Bagheera](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Bagheera/gifts).



> The title is borrowed from a line of MINSK's song 'Crescent Mirror'.
> 
> I hope you'll like this attempt at one of my favourite childhood books (as well), dear Bagheera! Your prompt made my brain tingle; thank you for letting me explore the characters some more. I'm not sure about this working in English, for I read it only in German so far. :)

It’s one hour until midnight.

And it’s six hours since the apprentices fled the mill. Clouds of flour dust will burst the air and take everything apart. Cormorant flames will gorge themselves on creaking wood and leftover tools.

I don’t know who’ll get me.

The fire? Maybe.

The Goodman? I don’t know, really. It could be his final slap in my face, to _not_ meet me. To not acknowledge another notch in his tally stick.

If I had a say in that matter, I would ask for Jirko. It would be just and equitable, no?

I’d get a second glass from the cabinet, and offer him his share of my best wine. It’s not any glass; it was _his_. The one he had left behind when we split up decades ago. Just before he went to be the Sultan’s conjurer.

I remember that evening very well. It was my fault.

We have had too much wine; we were boasting, and there were girls who looked at Jirko, and they were naturally enthralled by his vim. Stared at him with wet eyes and folds; I knew that glance. I had seen it sometimes before: when I had washed myself at the trough in front of a shed where I had slept with Jirko on the straw the night before. My reflection then speaks volumes and makes me sew my lips.

That night I became envious of the girls he threw his arms around; their giggle and blushing made me withdraw from my friend.

So when he as well had one, two cups of wine too much Jirko suddenly stared at me. Then he shouted my name and asked, “What is it? You’re looking like somebody you know has died.” The girl on his left looked compassionately in my direction. Jirko’s eyes gleamed in drunken exuberance.

“It’s nothing,” I murmured, and stared into the velvet depths of my beverage.

“I don’t believe you,” Jirko persisted, his voice becoming smoother and darker, resembling the shock of his supple hair. I felt an unfamiliar tingle around my chest and throat, and knew he was - probably unconsciously - using sorcery to get his answer.

Yet I was astounded and offended. I would never have dared to ask him this way. _Never_. And although I, of course, knew the counterspell I only looked at him and said, “I want to kiss you. And there you sit with these featherbrained girls in your lap. And now, from this very moment on I'm feeling we are drifting apart.” What I spoke wasn't sorcery, it was the mere knowledge of everything falling to pieces.

Jirko’s glass tumbled from his hands over one of the girl’s cleavage; she shrieked and together with her friend on the other side of Jirko they scrambled away from our table, from our presence. He knew I was true; I knew he was shattered. For all that, it made us two of a kind.

“You’re insane.”

“No, I’m not.” Angry, yes. But not insane. My voice wavered. I never felt more lorn before. Not when I ran from the farmstead of my childhood, not when I slept between reeking cows in the middle of winter. When I had met Jirko I knew: there’s another one. He’s of your kind. And from then on we were always two to be.

Jirko leapt from his seat and dashed into the night. I didn’t bother to pay our binge, and just headed after him. Once the cold December air hit me, also Jirko’s fist connected with my jaw, and sent me tumbling against the inn’s brick wall.

I breathed heavily; Jirko’s eyes were unreadable yet again. I felt despair, and clutched the reveres of his frock coat. “Let me,” I hissed against his ear, and tried to get my thigh between his.

Used no spell, nothing.

But Jirko made me lame and blind, my legs and eyes hurt like I fell into pits of sulphur. I could not move, and curled up in the soggy gutter. The witchery subsided with the coming dawn. I retrieved Jirko’s left behind glass cup and smashed mine on the threshold.

He was gone. I stared into the bleak day, with eyes hurting and still leaking from the spell.

I thought I could go on from this point on, and somehow I did.

I lost it all again when I shot the Sultan’s eagle. Lost even more when the Goodman refused to be impressed by my following attempts at necromancy; the cock’s plume had jiggled with his booming laughter, and he snarled at me, “Don’t you dare, nitwit.” The claw of his index finger poked into my eye, poked into my chest, and my heart froze over. His antic would be my nightmares.

Jirko’s corpse lay tattered and charred outside the pentacle; feathers glided from the walls. I almost vomited.

From this night on I searched for a mill and gathered journeymen. And sent them instead of me. New Year’s Eve meant devastation for one of them. A glimpse of what I used to feel every day since Jirko wasn’t by my side anymore.

They wouldn’t have believed me, if I told them I had hope left. For one of them, at least. Any of them. I didn’t care much.

So, who will it be for me?

I don’t have to look at my pocket watch to know it’s time: there is a knock at my door, and I’m holding my breath.

My heart is racing too fast.

Who, I ask you again, who will it be?


End file.
